This first essay asks you to consider My Friend Dahmer and produce a close

This first essay asks you to consider My Friend Dahmer and produce a close reading.  You will analyze a detail (a short passage or several related short passages) of the story and argue for how the detail develops the story’s meaning or significance.  Close reading is a skill that “begins with a sensitivity to the words of the text and all their denotative and connotative values and implications” (Guerin A Handbook of Critical Approaches to Literature).  Denotation refers to what something is (definition) and connotation refers to what something means beyond its strict definition.  While symbolism is an easy way to think about denotation and connotation (Apple – fruit, sin), you are not required to write about a symbol from one of the stories, although you may.  You could, however, think about the way a story is structured or patterns in a character’s behavior.  Because this assignment is focused on your own skills of analysis, no secondary source should be used.